“Hey, you two,” Andy says as he approaches.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Kyla greets him with a high-five. “What’s up, Prez?”
Tall-Dark-and-Handsome comes around the table from behind me and stands almost beside Andy, towering over Kyla. His eyes immediately fall to the cards spread across the table.
I try to look as if I don’t feel like a New Age hippy freak. Own it, Ana, I tell myself. It’s not like everyone else doesn’t already know it.
“Guys, this is Trebor,” Andy introduces his shadow with a pleasant smile. “He’s in the process of transferring to good ol’ Williamsville South High School.”
“Trevor?” Kyla asks, reaching out to greet him.
He looks her in the eyes, takes her hand, shakes it. “Trebor, actually,” he corrects with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
The sound of his voice jolts me. All the tiny hairs on my body rise to attention, as if they might catch the sound of him in the air.
“Woo, quite a handshake,” Kyla observes, flexing her hand after he releases it. “I’m Kyla. And this…” She puts an arm around me and squeezes both of my shoulders, drawing his gaze to me. “Is Anastasia.”
“Ana, actually,” I say, in more of a grumble than I mean to, praying that the warmth in my face is just a sign of the poor climate control in our school and not a sign that I’m blushing. I give him a small wave. “Hi.”
Trebor watches me for a second, uncertain, then returns my small wave. “Nice to meet you.” He shoves both hands into his jean pockets and looks back at my tarot deck.
“Sorry Ana,” Andy says. “Were you doing a reading? Did we interrupt?”
I pull my eyes away from Trebor’s newness and lean back in my chair, shaking my head, uncertain how to play it cool about something as odd as having my tarot deck spread out in the cafeteria, but trying anyway. “Nope. Just practicing.”
“Ana is a genuine fortune-teller,” Andy explains to Trebor in a conspiratorial tone that makes me both embarrassed and annoyed.
Trebor cocks his head in a strange way, absorbing that knowledge and storing it away somewhere. “Is that so?”
“Hey, Aaaaana,” Kyla begins in a singsong voice, and I know what she’s going to say. “How about…”
I stare daggers at her, thinking: this is the least cool way to handle my freaky New Age behavior in front of a total stranger.
“…if you’re not busy, that is…” Kyla goes on, eyebrows raised. She grins.
I sigh. I’m not mad. I can’t be mad at her. Kyla is always trying to get me to break out of my shell, especially around new people. I only have myself to blame for it—I told Kyla one too many times that I wish I had half as much self-confidence as she does. Kyla always says the key is to “fake it till you make it!” And now, she’s made it her mission to make me feel as socially uncomfortable as possible, as often as possible, to prove there is nothing to fear about being uncomfortable.
So I smile, feeling incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of showing my “talent” to this virtual stranger. “Of course. Sure. Trebor, do you want a reading?” I have to force my eyes to stay settled on his face until he replies, my skin wanting to flush the whole time.
Trebor opens his mouth to respond, looks from Kyla to the cards, to Andy, to me. But then he gives me an absolutely roguish smile in return, and nods. He pulls out a chair to sit across from me. “I’d love a reading. Thank you.”
“No problem. It’ll be good to read for a stranger. Better practice.” I take a breath, stack the cards, and slide them over to Trebor. “Shuffle the cards, and while you do, think about a question, or something you want clarity on. Hand over the deck when you’re done.”
Trebor nods, focusing on the cards in his hands as he sifts them back and forth.
Kyla nudges me and whispers in my ear: “Hey, so, tell me: from a straight girl’s perspective, he’s pretty hot, right?”
The warmth of color rushes to my cheeks, and I shove Kyla away, trying to play it oh-so-cool. But she giggles, and Trebor cracks a smile, and I wish Kyla could understand for just a minute how terrifying social discomfort can actually be when you’re not universally loved like she is.
Andy waves to someone across the cafeteria. “Oh, there’s Stacey. Listen, I’ve got to talk to her about student council stuff—” he pauses, grins. “Will you two make sure this kid doesn’t get into trouble for a few minutes?”
“Of course!” Kyla agrees, over-enthusiastically.
“Thanks,” Andy says, and jogs over to a gaggle of seniors a few tables away.
“Although Ana here isn’t exactly the best role model,” Kyla confesses to Trebor on my behalf. “She tends to be a bit of a troublemaker. Has a bit of an authority problem.”
“Kyla…” I almost growl.
Trebor chuckles. “Is that so?” he asks, and his eyes—I think slightly larger than average, and a striking green unlike anything I’ve ever seen—wander to mine.
I give him a close-lipped smile, not amused by Kyla’s showcasing of my attributes. “That was a long time ago.”
Kyla snickers. She seems to think that my old reputation as a fight-picking, rule-breaking, semi-anarchist was when I was at my best. I might have been miserable with life and angry at the universe, but I never doubted myself. She told me once that the day I came to her house in the back of a police car, insisting Ms. Patel and Kyla were my only living relatives despite our obvious racial disparity, she knew that I would never buy into the blind respect for authority we children are trained to have. She said she’d never seen me so proud and defiant, even while her mother disciplined me by making me weed her garden all spring long, in exchange for not telling my father.
“Okay.” Trebor slides the deck back to me. “I think it’s ready.”
I cut it into two piles. “Pick one.”
“The left.”
“Mine or yours?”
“Yours.”
I slide the right deck to the side, and peel off the first card from the top of the remaining deck.
“Past affecting the present. Two of cups.” On the face of the card, a man and a woman stand across from one another, ready to exchange chalices. A lion’s head, flanked by angel’s wings, oversees the exchange. The caduceus hovers in the air between the man and woman—a symbol of Hermes, the god of messengers—but also the god of deceit. “A union—a deep, palpable connection. Something both blessed and cursed—I want to say, something destined. Or maybe, you feel it was destined.” I take a breath and look at Trebor. He’s watching me, eyes—God, those green eyes—searching my face as surely as I’m searching his. He’s blank, telling me nothing.
Am I not reading correctly?
I close my eyes for a moment, focus, and tap into the chaos in my veins, that unbridled energy always hovering in the back of my awareness, the thing I’m constantly trying to quell. My mind slips into a stream of consciousness just beyond waking, self-defenses toppling down to let the information in. Everything expands and as I take the world inside of me, and then allow it to distill itself down to the truths being shown in the cards.
“You have a secret, I think,” I continue with confidence. “Something you’ve carried around for a long time. And you’re not sure what it means about you. But you need to know: it means everything. It will come to define you.” The truth buzzes inside of me as I feel the certainty of my words.
I look up at Trebor, and he turns away, a flicker of shock and denial in his eyes.
Got him.
I pull the second card, confidence building. “Present circumstances affecting the outcome. The Fool.” The blissfully ignorant jester shines up at me, about to walk straight off a cliff.
“Right now, you’re blindly moving forward. You’re searching for things that you’re not sure you want to believe in, things outside of yourself that might make the path you’re on more defined. You want them to give you direction—maybe even a sign that you’re already on the right path. But you have to follow your heart
, and have faith. There is always something bigger going on around us that we can’t see until we’ve passed through it, and turned around to see where we’ve come from, and how every decision has led us to this moment.”
When I look to see his reaction, Trebor’s staring at me.
“Interesting,” he murmurs.
Kyla smiles and snickers softly, proud of me in a weird way I’ve never fully understood.
I turn my eyes back to the cards. “Last card. Future outcome.” I pull the top card, revealing a man with a staff, fighting with six other staffs, their bearers out of sight. “Seven of wands. Standing up for what you believe in, in the face of adversity. Overcoming fear, and doubt—but be careful. There is a fine line between courage and martyrdom. It’s sometimes easier to die for what we believe in than to go on fighting. Safe decisions blamed on the courage of conviction are much less courageous than taking a risk, and admitting you don’t know what’s right.” My own words hit me hard in the stomach, and leave me breathless for a moment, even though I don’t really know what they would apply to. When my heart rolls out a strange drum beat, I’m almost tempted to believe the rhythm doesn’t belong to me.
“Over all, what I’m seeing is—whatever it is you had questions about—it’s been going on for a long time. And it’s coming to a head soon. You have a lot of concerns about what you think it will mean for you, but you have to keep an open mind. You should remember to follow your heart, not your head. And…also, remember: some things happen for a reason.”
I venture a glance across the table to see his expression. He’s considering it all, rather seriously.
“So, did I pass?” I wonder, smile curling at the corners of my mouth, because if I have confidence in myself about any one thing, it’s my ability to read the cards.
Trebor’s eyes meet mine. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” He smiles a crooked smile that, for some reason, I feel is more of a personal declaration than punctuation to a smart remark.
“So what was your question?” Kyla asks.
“Kyla...” I raise my eyebrows at her. She knows better than to ask that—the querent’s question should only be revealed if he decides to share it.
Trebor shrugs, eyes unwavering, still smiling. “I was thinking about a rather important decision I made recently.”
“Wait,” Kyla says. “He still has to pick a significator card. You always have me pick one.” She looks at Trebor. “It represents you, the querent.”
Trebor raises an eyebrow, still watching me.
I realize I’ve been staring back. Should I look away? What’s weirder, to keep staring, or to admit how uncomfortable I am under his scrutiny?
Fake it till you make it, I think, and refuse to back down.
“Of course. Kyla’s right,” I say. I reach blindly for the deck we pulled from and spread out the remaining cards. “Go ahead, pick one.”
Trebor reaches blindly too, considering the cards with his fingertips instead of his eyes. He picks one, slides it out.
When I turn it over and see, from the corner of my eye, which card he’s drawn, I can’t help but break my gaze.
The Hierophant looks up at us, dressed in red, seated on his throne, adorned with gold. I can’t help but think of my own reading last night, and I feel a shiver move through my spine, like sparks crackling down a fuse. I’m trying not to let the memory of Kyla’s reading influence this one, when I notice two things that didn’t stick out to me before: the scrolls of the Torah behind the Hierophant’s throne, and the hint of chain mail glistening at his throat.
“You’re a teacher,” I tell him, but do not repeat the crazy words that enter into my head right after: A holy warrior. “Are you religious?”
He shrugs, but his eyes are so intense I can’t believe the casual nature of the gesture. “Spiritual might be more accurate. What my people—my family—lacked in dogma, they more than made up for in blind faith.”
Your people? I wonder.
“But you’re not blind,” I see, and find myself smiling as a thought forms in the back of my head. I tap the card, invigoration spreading through me as the rush of a successful reading comes to a head. “This is your purpose. You’re meant to spread truth, and open the eyes of those who follow blindly.”
The bell rings, making Kyla jump and pulling me out of my trance. I feel myself slip back, the urgency in my blood sated by the exertion.
Trebor looks between the cards and me, considering, and still smiling. “Thank you, Ana. This has been enlightening.”
I gather my cards and smile back. I don’t look him in the eye this time. I’m not ready for that snare again, just yet.
Kyla and I stand and say goodbye to the new kid, heading off to our respective classes, when suddenly her eyes light up in a sinister way.
“Hey, Trebor,” she calls back just before we’re out the door. “See you at the party tomorrow tonight?”
I look over my shoulder to see his response, some part of me hoping he says yes, but all the other parts dreading Kyla’s machinations.
Andy walks up to him, elbows him and whispers something in his ear—whatever it is, it makes Trebor smile.
“Of course,” he calls back, and looks directly at me. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
— 11 —
It must be the changing of the season, I tell myself, because for some reason this nervous, thunderous humming inside of me just cannot seem to be sated for more than a handful of hours these past few days. It’s true that it’s been getting progressively stronger all year, but ever since I saw that man at the cemetery, it’s almost relentless.
At times like this, I’ve found that channeling is not enough. Like today, while my father is at the fire station, and Kyla is organizing things for her party, I’ve been playing my violin for three straight hours while the rain pelts the world outside my window, melting the last of the snow. I’ve played every song I know, several that I made up on the fly, and practiced scales for an entire hour. My shoulders are shaking from fatigue. My fingers are aching.
But it’s still there.
The hum inside of me has magnified, intensified, threefold since last night, since I saw that man with the flashing eyes on the street. I can’t get the sound of his voice out of my head, those two soft syllables reaching into my core and playing with my guts. Sorry, he said, voice like a cello sonata, like black coffee and fall leaves, like the crisp chill of winter air.
What does that even mean?
I shiver just thinking about it—about the sound, the man, the feeling. I find myself suddenly gasping sometimes, if I’m not careful to breathe deeply, regularly. By the time the sun goes down, I feel like I might go insane if I can’t get rid of this energy—this fire—whatever it might be.
And if I can’t channel it, I have to burn it off. Somehow.
I stare out the window, through the raindrops racing down the windowpane, into the shadows where darkness lingers, where darker things wait. My skin flushes with heat, and I imagine the cool clarity of cold water on my face.
I’m struck with the thought of taking off my sweater and running barefoot through the rain, splashing in the puddles until my feet turn to prunes—but that wouldn’t be a good idea. I would probably get sick, or cut my foot on some broken glass uncovered in the melting snow, or trip and skin my knees. But then, distressingly, the thought of pain somehow thrills me—it’s something direct, simple, certain. The burn of rent flesh, the cool rush of adrenaline in my blood—
Just the thought of it unleashes something raw and wild inside of me, and now that I’ve had the idea I can’t seem to shrug it off. Before I know it, I’ve pulled off my sweater and socks, and I’m opening the front door in nothing but my jeans and a black camisole.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply, sucking in the spring air until it fills my lungs, feeding the sparks smoldering in my veins, building to the verge of combustion. And then everything behind my eyelids turns white-hot, and infinite.
My eye
s snap open.
I leap off the porch, and hit the ground running.
It is pure exhilaration. The asphalt beneath my bare feet is coarse and cleansing as I run, each new splash dousing the legs of my jeans with cold, sending chills through my body. The rain covers me, inch by inch, kissing my arms, my shoulders, face and neck and chest, each kiss a spike of life, a pinch of ice.
I sprint, straining my body to go faster and faster, each lean muscle on my long frame vibrant, awake, burning. I run around the block, up to the park at the end of the cross street, through the muddy baseball diamond, relishing the feeling of earth between my toes. I’m so alive, so invigorated by such a simple act, by letting myself do this utterly primal, senseless, stupid thing.
Lightning flashes in the distance, and a quiet rumble of thunder is slow to follow. I grin and laugh, jump into the air spinning, crying out in the cacophony of the storm with my own, powerful voice—a voice I’ve never used. I don’t say anything, but shout to the sky, to the earth, to the emptiness of the playing field. My heart trembles with expansive freedom, with a kind of ecstasy I’m certain I’ve never known. I half expect lightning to shoot from my fingertips when I raise my arms to the sky.
I want to lie down in the cold and the mud, and let the rain and earth cover me. I want to let it bury me, let myself climb out of its murky depths, like a golem freshly born. Is that what I need? Do I need some kind of ceremony to recognize the changes I’ve felt coming?
I shake my head, long, wet hair slapping my shoulders, and force the thought from my mind. No changes. No thinking. Just running, and jumping, and reveling, and feeling.
I cut across the field, across the parking lot behind the retirement towers, run fast up to the main road and unabashedly down Main Street. What do I care if people see me? They won’t recognize me in the dark, sopping wet. I run and run, and decide that when I get home I’m going to climb out the attic window, onto the roof, stand on top of my house and scream as beautifully as I possibly can—
The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) Page 4
